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Dow Ends with Marginal Gains

Stocks of Blue-chip finished little higher as a better-than-expected increment in economic growth of U.S. offset concerns of investors about a weak outlook of corporate. There was an increment of 3.53 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was less than 0.1 percent to reach 13107.21. In the same week, the benchmark of blue-chip plunged 236.30 points, or 1.8 percent. Last Tuesday, Dow tumbled 243 points, mainly due to the concerns surrounding corporate earnings of last quarter.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index shed 1.03 points, or 0.1percent to reach 1411.94, falling around 1.5 percent for the current week. Health-care and financial shares slid while the sector of telecommunications advanced. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.83 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2987.95, down 0.6 percent on the current week.

Apple (AAPL -0.91%), the biggest company in U.S. in terms of market value, slid down by $5.54 or 0.9 percent, to $604 after a report on late Thursday that showed a growth of 24% for 4th quarter profit, which was lesser than what analysts expected. Its current period forecast was lesser than the views of Wall Street. Out of the forty three firms that issued projections on Thursday morning, thirty three gave forecast figures that were lesser than the expectations of Wall Street, as per S&P Capital IQ.

GDP, which is the biggest measure of services and goods produced by the economy of U.S., expanded at yearly rate of 2% from the month of July to all the way to September, as reported by Commerce Department. It topped the expectations of the economists and increased from 1.3 percent in the 2nd quarter. The consumer sentiment index of Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan contracted from an earlier reading that was provided earlier in the month, bucking expectations of the economists for keeping it unchanged.

Jim Dunigan, managing head of investments, PNC Wealth Management that oversees assets worth $112 billion, said that the GDP reading was a rather positive report, but it still was an extremely weak recovery. Out of the other earnings reports of tech firms, Amazon.com (AMZN +6.87%) moved ahead 15.32 or 6.9 percent to reach 238.24, after its report on Thursday that reflected first loss ever in last 9 years and revenue growth rate, which was lesser than expected.